Will to Survive
by Tomoyo Kinomoto
Summary: Travelling across the twisted, metal wasteland, Ashara's all but lost hope for finding other survivors. She's long stopped caring about the 'why's and 'how's. As the rain sets in, she realizes that her temporary refuge houses some elaborate machines, broken and abandoned, like her. But not beyond hope. Not if she could help it. (Image from saulinis-stock on deviantart)


So, this is a piece that I wrote ages ago as a warm-up exercise for something completely different that I thought was actually pretty good. Clearly, I own nothing but the ideas within this fic and my OC. And no, I can't remember what Colossus is supposed to be. Well, I have my theories, but not tellin'. Enjoy!

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Nearly done. Ashara paused for a moment to wipe her sweating brow, leaving a dark streak of grease behind. Rolling her eyes, she shifted her grip on her trusty wrench and went back to the attack. The issue was, she thought, twisting this way and that to cram her arm further into the small gap between the mechanized parts, the inventor of this thing never expected it to fall apart in the first place! Bloody scientists.

"You know," Ashara muttered as she blew a wisp of dark brown hair out of her face, "I don't think elbows are supposed to bend this way." She finally managed to hook the dratted nut with her wrench. "Gotcha!" she cried, triumphant. The bolt head was already captive to the ratchet in her other hand, and it was only a matter of unscrewing the thing, now. It was slow going, the confined space inside the metal contraption only allowing small jerks from her tools at a time. Shifting her weight from side to side in irritation, Ashara grit her teeth as her arms started to ache, hidden almost up to her shoulders by the machine she was trying to fix.

The thing was monsterous, so large it seemed to scarcely fit in the abandoned warehouse where it resided. Ashara, by no means the smallest of her age group, was dwarfed by the immense structure of steel and aluminum. The rain pounded on the rooftop above, sending the sound of hammers cascading down. Rusty lights - the ones that still worked, at least - peered down with their lidless eyes at their strange cousin below and the lithe girl who was so determined to wake him up.

"Hmm, so that's the state of things." Examining the extracted bolt, washer, and nut, Ashara saw that all three were heavily eaten through by rust. "Rubbish," she declared, chucking them over her shoulder to roll away somewhere on the floor far below. That whole panel inside was probably rotten, then. Bullocks, that was going to be difficult to extract.

Sticking her ratchet in the tool-belt she wore around her waist, she exchanged it for a pair of pliers, trying to yank the corrupted flap of metal out entirely. She heard the screeching of age-old metal, complaining about having to move. "C'mon… C'mon, baby, I'm trying to _help_ you!" Bracing her feet directly against the metal hull, Ashara pulled with all her might. She could feel the other bolts inside snap off, and she fell back with a jerk, feet slipping free, held upright only by her tenacious grip on the pliers as she slammed into the side of the beast.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" Ashara asked, clambering back up, her dark eyes sharp with anger. Trying for a new strategy, she managed to grip the flap from the top and twisted with all her strength, ignoring the complaints running up from both her arms. With a squeal like nothing else, Ashara felt the piece of metal finally submit to her will, and she leaned forward with an extra push. Finally, with a sudden crack, it came free. Ashara wasn't able to adjust her strength in time and slammed her hands into the tube below, her face knocking against the exterior. "You'd think I was pulling one of your teeth, what with all the trouble you've given me," she grumbled, rubbing her forehead again. The machine did not reply, and Ashara carefully pulled out the crumpled piece of rotten metal. "That outta help."

Hopping down onto a nearby catwalk, Ashara walked over to a nearby window and stuck her head outside, letting the rain splash onto her face. After a moment she withdrew, closing the window and shaking her head to get rid of some of the excess water, her wet ponytail slapping her across her shoulders. There was a second machine in the warehouse, off in what must have been an office of some sort. If Ashara hadn't known better, she would have said that it had grown there, a giant column of wires and steel tubes twining together looking like a giant flower. The stalk supported a head that was perfectly spherical with some sliding disks – rather, they looked like they were supposed to move, but Ashara hadn't been able to get them to do so yet. It was her pet machine, and she liked tinkering with it when the Colossus (as she sometimes called the other, much more frustrating, machine) wasn't cooperating.

She walked over to it now, humming to herself as she sat down around the stalk, pulling off a piece of paneling to start mending the wires underneath. It was soothing, gently tugging the bent strands of copper wire and guiding them towards their severed counterparts. The machine was actually in really great shape especially when compared to the condition of Colossus. There had been a chunk missing from the side of its base and the head had nearly been severed, but not anymore. Ashara had reconnected the head, which was a surprisingly straight-forward endeavor, then worked on finding substitutes for the base.

"Whoever did this to you must have really wanted you gone," Ashara mused, frowning down at a bundle of wires that were several inches too short to connect to anything. "Wonder what you do." She reached behind her for her supply bag. In it were all sorts of things: extra tools, spare parts, fresh wires, a bundle of blankets, some cans of food, and other odds and ends. Everything she owned used to be stashed in this bag, but over the course of the long months she had spent in that warehouse, her things had migrated out.

The first time Ashara decided to explore her new home, she got hopelessly lost. There were nooks and crannies everywhere, with all sorts of weird pillars and ladders that were rusted through and half-destroyed. Luckily, someone had left a bunch of useful tools around, including a teapot – Ashara hadn't had real tea in so long – although they were almost always accompanied by some weird writing on the walls about lies. Whatever, not her problem. There was nothing around here. No people, no other buildings, nothing. Well, there were the remains of the rest of the compound, but those weren't structurally sound anymore so they did not count.

This building was the last one fully standing, so Ashara had claimed it for her own. The machines inside had captivated her, and truth be told, they still did. She found a manual of sorts for Colossus, and luckily it was still mostly readable. From what she could gather, the large machine was the brain-child of some crazy inventor that wanted to be able to teleport from one place to another. At first, Ashara was naturally suspicious, but other records implied that this machine, or others like it, really did work. Only, this machine was severely banged up and falling apart. The challenge was too good to pass up, so Ashara took it upon herself to start repairing Colossus.

As the months passed, she effectively ignored the sensible voice in the back of her head that reminded her of the scarcity of food and how she did not know how far away she would have to travel to get more so she'd better get started now. It was just too much fun working with these machines. Ashara loved it. It made her feel alive in a way that she hadn't for the longest time, made her want to wake up in the mornings again, made her feel like she wasn't totally alone.

Wires all reconnected, Ashara stepped back, circling her charge. It _looked_ complete, but she still didn't know what it did. Only one way to find out, really. Ashara pulled out her spare generator, plugging the wires of the machine into it. She paused for a minute, heart pounding slightly, then she flipped the switch. The generator made a whirring noise as it came to life, lights blinking on to show it was operating. Nothing else moved or made a sound. After a few moments, Ashara started to feel a little silly, and she scowled, peering at her machine. It should be moving, at least, she could tell that much. Walking to the other side, she frowned at the thing, giving it a sharp poke at the base of its head.

Suddenly, the slats pulled open, revealing a bright blue eye underneath. Ashara screamed and scrabbled backwards. The machine extended upwards, easily twice as tall as it had been when Ashara was working on it. It swung around in wide arcs, a light or laser of some sort scanning the room, and even reaching through the door-less doorway to land on Colossus. With a high-pitched whining noise, the machine shot _something_ out of itself into the other room, leaving behind corkscrew twirls of white smoke. There was a fraction of a second where Ashara thought that nothing had happened, stunned by what was going on, then the frame of Colossus exploded. Ashara screamed.

She scrambled out of the way as the machine turned, firing at her now. It missed, but barely. Grabbing the straps of her bag, Ashara swung herself up a ladder and onto the nearest catwalk, running as fast as she could to get away. The machine below fired once more at her before she ducked out of its sight behind a pillar. Shivering, Ashara hugged her knees, trying hard to get her frantic breathing under control. Not working. She shuddered as she heard the whistling of the machine and felt the blast rock her wall. Panicked, she looked around her pillar. The machine had destroyed the wall separating it from Colossus, giving itself more room to strike. Another shot, another explosion. Ashara screamed, tears blurring the harsh orange glare of overheated metal and the dark chunks of metal thrown into the air.

"Stop! Stop!" she cried, trying to get her feet back under her and failing. Slumping down on the other side of her pillar, Ashara sobbed, looking frantically around for something, anything, she could use to stop that thing. _Thunk!_ She hit the machine square in the side of the head with her wrench. It swiveled at her, its head no longer a perfect sphere, and fired. Screaming, Ashara threw herself to the side as the missiles flew through where she had been seconds before. They hit her pillar of refuge, causing the catwalk to buckle and throw her off the edge. Barely managing to grab on to the rail, Ashara cried out as her bag clipped her shoulder as it fell.

One arm numb, Ashara began to shake and cry. What was going _on_? Why was this happening? "N-no!" she whined, pulling herself up to rest more easily on the railing, "S-s-stop! Go aw-way!" For once, the machine obliged, returning to its previous mission of destroying Colossus. Clinging to the rail, Ashara didn't know what to do. Some small part of her wanted to run, run as fast and as far as she could and never look back. But, Colossus… She had almost finished it. She could have almost gone home.

With a war-cry, Ashara let go, falling to the cement floor below. She rolled as she hit the ground, trying to distribute the force, but it still hurt. A lot. Stumbling over to her bag, Ashara pawed around inside looking for her tools, before she just dumped everything out in an unceremonious pile. Grabbing a few likely candidates, she busied herself with adjusting the tools on her belt, making room for all the extra things she needed to carry and trying not to look at the destruction going on nearby.

She ran along the sides of the warehouse, staying in the shadows and using the multitude of loose debris, wires, and pieces of collapsing warehouse to hide her approach. After what seemed like an eternity, she was behind the machine, oblivious as it continued to pummel Colossus to pieces. The generator was in front, so she would not be able to just pull it out, it was too dangerous, but she could wreak havoc on the wires from the back. Probably.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Ashara sat down behind the machine, wrapping her legs around the base to be as close as possible and thus, hopefully, limiting its ability to kill her. Using her jigsaw, she tried to cut out a panel large enough for her to access the core wires. The machine shot off to the side, causing her blade to scrape against its side, causing little damage. Ashara cursed, trembling again as her nerves were shot. "Hold still, you loony!" she screamed, attacking it closer to the bottom this time. The machine writhed underneath her, craning and shooting in all directions as it tried to dislodge her. Luckily the thing was cemented to the ground or else she _really_ would've been in trouble.

Gritting her teeth, Ashara powered through, muttering encouragements to her power-tool as it began to whine and overheat. "Just a little more. C'mon… Do it for me, love." She jumped as the machine fired, the shots deafening at this close range, trying to keep her blade steady. Trying to block out the sounds of constant firing, she tried humming, then turned her desperate encouragements into a sort of tuneless song. "Don't die on me now. I know you can do it, keep with it."

Finally, with a triumphant cry, Ashara pounded on the rectangle(ish) she had created, causing it to dislodge from the rest of the base. A piece of something fell from above and Ashara instinctively clung to the machine as she cringed, hoping not to get hit. "Aah!" The machine swiveled around and around in circles, cutting her face and arms with the rough edges between the metal pieces.

"Oww," Ashara cried, pulling away and looking at her wounds, trying hard to fight her rising panic. Gingerly picking up her tools, Ashara tugged at the wires inside. There were so many, and there was some more metal stuff getting in the way. Shouting in frustration, she began to hack recklessly at the mess of wires, cutting whatever she could lay her hands on. The machine was going bezerk, spinning rapidly and firing at everything, its horrible eye flung this way and that. Ashara pulled out her largest wrench and whacked every inch of the machine around her, sparks flying up from contact, metal shards the size of her hand flying off, crumpling delicate tubing and some more wires. Backing up quickly, Ashara paused for a moment before chucking the wrench with all her might at the thing's head. It cracked the glass covering the eye as the machine whined and miraculously slowed, slowed… and stopped.

She waited, another wrench already in her hands, sure that it would pop back up at any moment, ready to strike again. Silence rang throughout the abandoned warehouse, a deafening silence alleviated only by the sound of rain and the hiss of fire. Turning, Ashara surveyed the devastation and cried out in horror. The Colossus was dead. Its front was completely demolished, loose bits of electronics sputtering in the open air, metal frame blackened and twisted beyond repair. The warehouse itself was on fire. Or, everything that was flammable was. Even the rust was burning a little. Ashara moaned as she saw the manual, her guide, her support, burning. She collapsed to her knees, unable to tear her eyes away. The friggen machine had even managed to punch a few holes through the roof, and the holes let in a wash of rainwater that did little to stem the flames. It was all… over.

"W-what." Ashara licked her lips, her mouth too dry to speak properly. "How am I gonna get home?" she squeaked, voice rising as she felt her throat tighten. "How am I gonna get _away_ from this place?" Wracked with dry sobs, she fell to the ground and curled up as small as she could manage, wincing as she scraped her arms over sharp rocks and metallic shards. She had nothing left. This had been her last hope, and it too had been a lie.


End file.
